Canadian universities are very sensitive to the knowledge economy creed. Advocating this model, the OECD upholds that a knowledge-based economy relies on the production and use of knowledge to ensure economic growth. Knowledge enhances a country’s ability to compete economically; its acquisition is necessary to ensure a competitive edge. Within such a context, universities are invited to privatize and commercially develop the knowledge they generate, through patents and other forms of intellectual property, and to train qualified personnel capable of meeting challenges inherent to the new economic reality characterised by globalisation. Canada’s governments base themselves on this model, both in their policies and programs, when they wish to augment universities’ resources.

That said, in Canadian universities, dogmatic adherence to the knowledge economy model engenders its own set of problems despite short-term gain: the exacerbation of private interests in an area where the common good should prevail, the privatization of knowledge dedicated to the principle of exclusion, and research whose profitability is measured mainly in economic terms and with the expectation of quick results. It is also paradoxical that, despite this model’s predilection for innovation (newness, originality), the standardisation of practices is nonetheless very popular in the race for structural adjustment of university practices.

Indeed, universities have always maintained a tight relationship with the State. While responding to external demands, they have carried out their mandates through the reinvention of compromise, owing to a certain period. This is not meant to deny the university’s contributions to the improvement of the economic well-being of individuals and societies. It’s more a question of promoting a humanist alternative to the knowledge economy model, which is often presented as the only possible option. The alternative is that of knowledge societies.

While the prevailing model proposes the existence of a knowledge economy, an alternative model points to the development of knowledge societies, pluralistic societies, committed to acknowledging cultural diversity. UNESCO supports this model. At the heart of these societies rests the capacity to produce and apply knowledge towards human development. Freedom of expression and cooperation among and within communities supply the foundation upon which knowledge societies are built. Universal access to knowledge is a prerequisite, implying strategies to combat poverty. The digital gap must come to a close: the use of free software is proposed. A cognitive gap separates the North and the South. Knowledge tends to favour an exclusionary principle, bestowing power upon those who already have it. The commercialisation of research results limits access to knowledge; also, a mediator must be established, reconciling the right to knowledge with intellectual property rights.

Governments and Canadian universities must sensitize themselves to this humanist alternative of the knowledge economy. This applies to their politics, programs, and practices alike. The university’s mandate is at stake, as is our collective future in this endangered world.

by Jean Bernatchez

Political scientist and professor/researcher of education, Université du Québec à Rimouski

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